Paajarvi gets new lease on NHL life with Senators

RALEIGH, North Carolina – It has been a trying, long-lost first half of the season for Magnus Paajarvi.

So, maybe it’s only fitting that the former first-round draft choice has landed with the Ottawa Senators, who, as a team, have also gone through a trying, long-lost first half of the season.

In both cases, the second half of the season is about the hope and quest of salvaging something positive they can take into the future.

“It’s a new page,” Paajarvi said late Monday after practising with his new Senators teammates for the first time since being plucked off waivers from the St. Louis Blues on Friday.

“We’ve got a little bit more than two months to go here, so I want to give it my all and see what happens here.”

Paajarvi originally carried great expectations as the 11th overall selection by the Edmonton Oilers in the 2009 entry draft. After a promising rookie season in 2010-11, when he scored 15 goals and 19 assists, he split time between Edmonton and the AHL. He was traded to St. Louis in 2013, but never gained a full-time foothold with the Blues, either.

He had only two goals and two assists in 44 games this season. He has 45 goals and 52 assists in 352 NHL games.

“It has been up and down,” Paajarvi said, somewhat philosophically, when asked about his career. “Good year, bad year. I played really good last year and then, I couldn’t get going this year in St. Louis. I’ve been in an out and of the lineup a little bit. Yes, it has been very up and down. But I’m still here. I know I can play in this league. I feel confident.”

Senators coach Guy Boucher figures to mix and match to find a home for Paajarvi, but for now, at least, he’ll start Tuesday’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes on a line with Derick Brassard and Ryan Dzingel.

“We’re going to give him a chance, for sure,” Boucher said. “Pierre (Dorion, Senators general manager) and the whole scouting staff feel that he has the speed to help us. He has size, he’s first on the puck, he can be on the penalty kill. He’s a reliable, hard-working NHL player and we’re in a position right now to try guys like that.”

Nobody should get too caught up in seeing Paajarvi alongside Brassard and Dzingel. Once Mark Stone returns from his knee injury – perhaps as early as Saturday against the Philadelphia Flyers – he’ll likely return to the line, but the Senators are hoping that Paajarvi adds something, somewhere, to an injury-depleted roster that has grown stale with all the losing.

“We’re going to give him a chance to play with guys that have some offence, but he’ll also probably be asked to play other places, too,” Boucher said.

As the Senators take a five-game losing streak into Tuesday’s game against Carolina, a healthy 17 points and seven teams out of the post-season, reality has set in.

The second half of the season will be about giving young players more and more opportunity to prove themselves.

“We have to grow where we can grow,” said Boucher. “Everything matters. It matters for now, it matters for later. Every game you want to win, but yes, we are trying things, we are giving some young guys the opportunity to gain some experience. We’ve done that for a little while now and we’re going to continue to do that.”

While Paajarvi, 26, is no longer considered a young player, the Senators will be looking to see if he can join the likes of Thomas Chabot and Colin White as a part of the 2018-19 team.

Against Carolina, Chabot will likely be paired with captain Erik Karlsson on the Senators defence. White, who has been used primarily as a winger in his previous stints with the Senators, will start the game at centre, with Alex Burrows and Chris DiDomenico as his wingers.

Paajarvi will be moved around to see where he best fits.

As a pending unrestricted free agent, he’s clearly in need to prove himself to stay in the NHL, whether that’s in Ottawa or somewhere else.

“Absolutely, it’s an audition,” Paajarvisaid. “You need to be (proving yourself) all the time to keep going.”

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